Only What You Need
by the ersatz diplomat
Summary: After the loss of a friend, the Order's two token shapeshifting freaks find comfort in the bottom of several bottles  and in each other .
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Only What You Need  
**Rating & Warnings:** PG for drinking, language, innuendo and abuse of prescription medication.  
**Prompt:** Angst/Humour and _Dragon_ (sort-of, I tried!)  
**Format & Word Count:** chaptered fic, 1201/approx. 4000  
**Summary:** After the loss of a friend, the Order's two token shapeshifting freaks find comfort in the bottom of several bottles (and in each other).

**Author's Notes:** So that dragon prompt really threw me for a loop. I didn't manage to use it the way I wanted to, but I gave it my best shot. Angsty Black humour ahoy! More to follow.

* * *

_But I thought this wouldn't hurt a lot  
I guess not._

–'Kids,' MGMT 

Remus Lupin was sitting at a bar next to a lovely young woman who had bought him several pints (of his favorite brand) and some food (which he had barely touched), and he was turning the beer mat over and over in his fingers, trying to work out exactly how he'd gotten here.

He must have assented to being Apparated off, probably after the makeshift memorial service at the Weasleys' (a firewhiskey toast). She'd put an arm around his shoulders, though what she'd been saying as she led him away, he couldn't recall.

There was a lit sign on the wall opposite him, a neon green dragon wrapped around an old-fashioned beer keg. It blew 'smoke' out its nostrils every hour. The thought of a drunk dragon was (to be perfectly honest) terrifying, but the only reason he was considering it was because he was pretty far gone himself.

Five nights ago, they had been sitting in Grimmauld Place doing much the same when they were summoned to the Ministry. There had been more laughter, though. And in the span of ten minutes his whole life had been flipped upside down.

Again.

Little memories of _that_ kept surfacing like broken pieces of ice, swamping him like rough seas. He fought it, shaking his head—it wouldn't do any good to be dragged under now.

Remus cast a sidelong glance at the woman next to him. There was an ill flame of colour on her cheek, no doubt results of a painkiller for that spell and fall she took. She might have been literal when she said she 'escaped' the hospital. He knew better than to put it past her – that woman was capable of anything.

She was, in that respect, a lot like her cousin.

Nymphadora Tonks was svelte and daunting with her crimson dreadlocks, kohl-rimmed eyes and silver piercings. Like a thorned rose, he thought; look, don't touch. The scowl on her face was something he couldn't get around – she wasn't broody by nature but she seemed to be managing it well enough now.

It was like sharing a basket of chips with a bad faerie. His own personal _bean sidhe._

Wasn't that a Weird Sisters' song?

"Stop that, it's driving me insane." She batted the beer mat out his hands and put it under her own drink. The girl ordered another round of peppermint schnapps and in the manner of two people versed in drowning sorrows they touched glasses and downed the shots.

"Sorry."

"It's fine." Tonks winced – the argent fire of the drink was winding down through her like slow poison. It hurt to cough, but it was those other aching pains that were worse, the ones that didn't fade out into numbness when she took a potion or a pill. Or both. She had been injured on missions before, but never so severely. The Healers never knew just what to do with her. Their treatments were always touch-and-go, trial and error, educated guesses.

She'd only got out of St. Mungo's that morning and then spent the rest of the day bouncing between her parents' house and the Ministry in a drugged haze, answering questions and worrying. Mostly about Remus. Three broken ribs, a broken arm, a bruised kidney and a punctured lung weren't so bad compared to how she felt when she looked at him.

The usually unshakeable man next to her had his elbows on the bar and his chin in his hands, hair askew, dark shadows under eyes staring at something she couldn't see. She had the urge to slap him, maybe kiss him or tackle him onto the floor amongst the peanut shells, screaming 'feel better so that I can feel better.'

It was a sad and sober thought; there wasn't really a word for what he was feeling, was there?

_Aggrieved_ didn't quite cut it.

She had brought him to the pub some of her friends liked to frequent. There was a Wizarding inn of the same name, The Green Dragon, but she hadn't wanted to seem forward (it was a meet-your-mistress-on-your-lunch-hour kind of place). Now she was certain he wouldn't have noticed. Tonight was some sort of live music night and a man in the corner was currently butchering _'Ain't No Sunshine.'_

"D'you want another?" she asked over the noise, watching Remus as he turned the empty glass in circles on the bar. He hadn't breathed a word but 'sorry' since they had arrived. That armor he wore was wearing thin and something mortally wounded was showing through. He nodded without looking at her. She waved the bartender over, motioning for two more pints.

Guitar Man was now making an attempt at _'Everybody Hurts.'_ This was the final straw for Tonks, who had suffered through enough musical whinging for one evening. She smacked her half-empty glass down, twisting around.

"Don't you know any happy songs, you pillock?"

The guitarist swore into the microphone, loud and anatomically specific. A few of the patrons laughed.

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that," she snarled, turning back to her drink. The dragon sign had sputtered out in a rogue burst of magic Remus felt hit him like a hot breeze – it silenced the room.

"I'm not." He'd tried to stand up but was holding fast to the bar to keep the room from spinning.

"Thanks and all, but you couldn't fight a pixie right now."

With effort she hauled him back onto the stool next to her. He was finding it increasingly difficult to separate the cheerful, awkward girl he knew from the Valkyrie he'd seen in the Ministry of Magic.

Maybe she was, too.

The music started up again, the chattering of the patrons drowning out the ringing in his ears. The bartender was trying to fix the sign to no avail, plugging and unplugging it, staring at the outlet. Tonks had a pained look on her face, trying to keep her hair from going Proceed With Caution Orange (the name had been Sirius's idea).

"You play a bit of guitar, don't you, Nymphadora?" Remus asked, interrupting her as she muttered darkly, looking like she was scrying for dark portents in her rum and Coke.

His throat felt as if he'd spent three hours screaming at top volume. Had he? The day had passed in a blur of sleeping and having bowls of food thrust at him by people with red hair.

"Some, yeah."

"How much do the strings cost?"

She bit her lip, running a finger around the rim of her glass. Her eyelashes looked wet. "I dunno, five pounds a set or so. Why?"

Remus shrugged and all six strings on the guitar snapped as one during the second verse of a bad cover of Leonard Cohen's _'Hallelujah.'_

He shot her the briefest of smiles. "Just curious."

Tonks pushed her drink away, the corner of her mouth quirked up in appreciation.

"I think I need some fresh air."

* * *

_to be continued..._


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: So I'm actually posting a whole chaptered fic without any long waits or delays. Apparently anything is possible. :D

* * *

_I looked up and saw you_  
_I know that you saw me_  
_we froze but for a moment_  
_in empathy._

_–'Audience of One,' Rise Against_

They sat outside on the curb in front of the bar, under the streetlamps where moths fluttered, and talked. Tonks hadn't wanted to do this, necessary as it was. She hated talking about feelings, hers or otherwise. This likely stemmed from all the time she spent with Moody, who had two visible emotions – cantankerous and paranoid, and because she never really had to say how she felt. It just…showed.

"Mad-Eye told me everything when I woke up." Tonks kicked at a piece of loose gravel with the toe of her motorcycle boot. "So there's no need to go through the details. Unless you want to."

"Not really."

"That's fine," she said, putting her hand on top of his reassuringly. "I don't want to either."

A car rumbled by as he squeezed her hand once and let go.

"So," Tonks said, dragging out the 'o.' "Heard any good jokes lately?"

Remus snorted, giving her a look that she couldn't place – was it amusement or annoyance? But as he looked back out into the street he was smiling. In the jaundiced glow of the street lights the gray in his hair looked blonde.

After a moment, he said, "Did you hear the one about the pirate and the Niffler?"

"No, how does it go?"

"I don't know, I was wondering if you'd heard it."

They both laughed awkwardly.

"You don't know what a relief it is to see you smile," she blurted out, not meeting his eyes. "Lets me know I'll be okay."

It was dark enough he couldn't see that she'd gone pink in the face, though he was giving her a searching look. Remus was a walking, tea-drinking lie detector, and one of the few people (aside from her mother) who could read her like a grocery list.

She was doomed.

"Nymphadora. You're just being nice," he said, though he knew she had meant it.

"It's true." She sounded as if she'd proved some universe-defining theory. Maybe she had, but Tonks was always in her own universe, on some separate plane of existence that ran parallel to his, never crossing paths. "You know I would never go around saying shite like that if it wasn't true."

"Are you okay?" he asked, half-teasing, putting his hand against her forehead. She was feverish. "How are you feeling?

"Smashed," Tonks grinned. "And our choice of seating is making my arse numb, but that's probably more than you wanted to know."

It was obvious she was in pain – she wasn't fidgeting like usual, her eyes were glazed, her hands kept going to her side. In his mind's eye he saw the dark stone room in the Department of Mysteries, lit in flashes of spellfire.

"Did they ever sort out what kind of curse hit you?"

"Nope," she said, and then, "I'm not worried about it. We're alive."

"Barely alive," he amended.

"And that should suffice," she countered, giving him a sideways look as if was a question.

"You know, I feel like it was my fault somehow," he said, laughing emptily, thinking back to the counselor his mother made him see when he was twenty-one; some woman at St. Mungo's who seemed afraid he was going to jump across the table and rip her throat (because she'd seen his medical records and could put two and two together). "Is that stupid and irrational of me?"

He could clearly remember the way she had put as much space possible between them, shaking fingers holding a quill as she wrote down his answers to questions asked in a trembling voice;

"How does that make you feel?"

As if she cared. He'd stopped going after the third appointment and went to the pub instead.

Nymphadora had her hand on his again, her shoulder and hip and knee against his. She was a Personal Space Invader by nature, and though many people wouldn't even shake his hand, she twined her fingers through his, staring at the pavement.

"It's not stupid. Well… A bit irrational." She had her speech prepared, as he knew she would. "'Cause I feel like it's my fault, too. But it wasn't your fault. You're the one who said we were being set up, you're the one who tried to make Sirius stay. If it's anyone's to blame for the way it all went to hell, it's me. I should have been able to do something other than almost die. I was bloody useless."

Remus wasn't convinced of her uselessness, having seen her put a Death Eater-shaped hole in a wooden door with as much effort as he used to tie his shoes.

"And I should've been able to make Sirius stay at headquarters, but..." he shrugged.

"He would have stuffed you into a trunk before being left at home."

"True. And those bastards only got past us once you were down, if it makes you feel any better."

"It doesn't."

"No. I didn't think it would."

She was biting her lip again. Nymphadora was probably one of those girls who could cry and still be pretty, but he was probably biased about that. He'd had all his own crying over with those nights she was unconscious in the hospital. It hadn't fixed anything or even made him feel better, but he had gone through this before and he could do it again.

As if she'd read his mind, she said, "Thanks. For staying with me when I was at St. Mungo's."

"You would have done the same for me," he said, and she nodded.

"Where are you gonna go?" She brushed the back of her hand across her eyes.

"To the Burrow, I guess. That's where all my things are."

"I meant...y'know, tonight. You're a mess."

He shrugged a reply, feeling the warmth of too many drinks settling on him like a heavy blanket. She was straightening the collar of his shirt, neatly rolling up the sleeves. "I don't know."

"Well, you can't show up at the Weasleys' pissed. Molly would throttle us." She made a wringing motion. "Both of us at the same time. Shouldn't risk it. You should stay in the city with me."

"I don't think that would be," he searched for a word. "Er. Appropriate."

"Appropri-what? Am I that damaging to your reputation?"

"I could ask you the same."

Tonks laughed a little too loud. "I don't care; I think you should come over. I'll make us some coffee or something. It'll be fun. We'll take the Knight Bus."

Before he could protest (he'd had her coffee before: burnt), she was on her feet with her wand out and the purple monster of a bus was screeching to a stop in front of them.

"A Galleon, two Sickles," said the conductor after she rattled off her London address. She dug in a pocket for the money. "But you 'ave to sit up top."

Climbing three flights of stairs proved to be difficult; the lurching of the bus notwithstanding, but it offered an interesting view of the back of her. Dodging the heels of her boots was another matter altogether.

They caught one of the empty brass beds as it careened toward the back of the bus and both dropped wearily onto it. When the bus slammed to a stop again, the bed slid and she clutched his arm, looking pale. Maybe, he thought, they should provide buckets instead of toothbrushes and hot chocolate. Tonks said this aloud after three more sudden stops and starts, adding that beds shouldn't move at all unless there was intense shagging going on.

He grinned, though he tried not to. "Thanks."

"For what? Embarrassing you in public?"

"You can embarrass me whenever you want."

She shot him a coy look, ruined by a snort of laughter. "You're going to get us kicked off the bus if you keep talking like that."

"Me? You're the one talking about shagging," he said and she arched a pierced eyebrow.

"I am no longer responsible for the things I say."

"I knew you couldn't hold your liquor."

"Liquor? I barely know her."

"I set that one up for you. You're welcome."

Tonks was right, as she usually was – he went on to tell her about the last time he had been so publically smashed (at James Potter's stag do, which had included an ill-advised ride in a Muggle cab, some cigarettes of dubious legality and a similarly dubious and ill-advised dancer named Stephanie who later proved to be a Steven) at length and rather loudly, which earned them a temporary ban for being disruptive.

Stan Shunpike ordered them (nervously) off the bus at wandpoint a few blocks from their destination.

Nymphadora was delighted.

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chapter three on the way...


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Only What You Need (3/4)  
**Author's Notes:** For some reason I was convinced I had posted the entirety of this story, please forgive the delay.

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_I won't let you let me down so easily. _

_'I Will Possess Your Heart,' - Death Cab for Cutie_

So they walked. Or tried to.

Outside an all-night diner they laced paper cups of coffee liberally with firewhiskey – he had talked her into stopping so that they could try to sober up and Tonks had pulled a small flask from the calf of one boot, defeating the purpose with an entirety only she could manage. Remus made a joke about how she was turning into Mad-Eye, not a good thing because she was the type to use the power of x-ray vision maliciously. She agreed.

They wandered down the sidewalks, stumbling against each other. She led him into a tall, narrow brick building, up another M.C. Escher staircase to a bright blue door. Stopping on the landing, she swayed dangerously, then pulled her wand from under her skirt and made a complicated motion. The door clicked and swung open.

"The 'lectricity is unreliable," she flicked her wand again as she stepped through the doorway and a dozen candles lit around the cluttered room, along with a small fire in the grate. "My roommate is supposed to call about it tomorrow."

"I forgot you had a roommate."

Tonks tripped on the edge of a braided rug. He caught her arm.

"Miranda Thruston. She works nights at a radio station."

"She's a Muggle, right?" he asked, surveying the books lined up on the mantle; quite a few trashy romance novels, wrinkled and water-damaged from bathtub readings.

"She's non-magical. A Squib, but I don't like to use that word—"

Remus worried, momentarily, that she was about to go all Society for the Protection of Elfish Welfare on him, but she continued:

"Sounds too much like squid. And she's not, you know," with an illustrative roll of her wrist, "Aquatic. She is definitely a land mammal."

He realized he was still holding her arm and let go. Smiling, Tonks shucked off her jacket and threw it unceremoniously in the wicker laundry basket that occupied the sofa. The clutter in the living room was unquestionably female – glossy magazines and fuzzy blankets and teacups with lipstick marks. There were shoes everywhere. It even smelled girly, like orchids and chocolate (and inexplicably, sixth year Potions).

"Please ignore the mess, I haven't been home in ages."

"Have you ever seen the boys' dorms at Hogwarts? Don't answer that. So, Thruston," he said quickly, pointing at an autographed poster. She was grinning now. "As in Orsino, as in the Weird Sisters?"

"His older sister, actually. We used to go out."

"You dated his sister?" he asked (because you never know).

"I dated him."

This was an interesting development, and it certainly explained the quantity and variety of her Weird Sisters concert t-shirts. Remus raised an eyebrow.

"It was a long time ago," she clarified, sniffing.

He couldn't help himself. "In a galaxy far, far away?"

"Merlin, I wish." Nymphadora dropped into the chair behind her and began to pull off her boots. A pair of lacy stockings followed, and she sling-shotted one off her thumb at him. It hit a lampshade and hung there. "He's three years younger than me, you know."

Now what, he wondered, had she meant by that? He would've liked to think he knew her well enough to gauge whether she was dropping hints or just flirting for the fun of it (for which she was notorious).

Those arsenic gray eyes spoke for her – _I didn't think you would actually follow me home,_ she was saying, _what do you want to do now?_ There were plenty of suggestions in the way she crossed her legs and sat back into the chair, but her eyes were bloodshot and her lips looked parched.

Lying to himself about it wouldn't do any good – part of him was dying for whatever she was offering, but the rest of him wasn't going to allow it (and then there was that whole could-never-forgive-himself thing, and he liked her too much for either of them to suffer through that). It was tempting. But he had filed her under the column _Best Friends_ (though she had recently been bumped up in the standings) and that's where she would stay. For now. Probably forever.

"Was there a shortage of men?" Remus finally asked, because it felt like a neutral thing to say.

"There always is. You wanna have a look around?" Tonks nudged her boots under the sofa. "I'll give you the tour."

He helped her up; she held his hand for too long as they walked down the hall, pointing out the bedrooms and study, bathroom and the French doors with peeling paint, leading onto the balcony. The clock on the mantel chimed just after midnight. She was starting to ache – there wasn't a place on her body that didn't hurt now.

"I'll be right back, don't get lost."

Tonks ducked into the bathroom, leaving her lit wand on the edge of the sink while she splashed cold water on her face. It didn't help the fuzzy feeling in her head, though it was time for another dose of the potion that Healer at the hospital had prescribed, anyway. She took a long gulp from the bottle and dried her face on a towel.

It had been more than a year since she'd had a bloke over, the flat was a disaster area, and she felt like the walking dead. A date this was not.

A strand of lank, dark hair fell in her eyes as she took out her piercings, a habit she had fallen into after a bad experience featuring Sirius, a kip at the kitchen table and one of Arthur's prized nine-volt batteries, (though she harbored a suspicion it had been Remus's idea all along).

He'd been there, laughing, when Sirius touched the battery to her lip ring, shouting "it's aliiiive," as she woke up screeching. Magic and electricity never fare well together; for several hours afterward she hadn't been able to touch anything metal without sending up a shower of sparks. Remus had called her Tesla Coil for days (she'd had to go look that one up).

And of course it would happen this way, she thought, that after months of shameless flirting on her part, she finally had the man alone, in her flat, all vulnerable and in need of attention.

The Slytherin side of her (because there definitely was one) was gleefuly running through that list of inappropriate things she would have liked to do to him (or with him, or have done to her), but she knew him well enough to know that it wasn't going to happen, natural human reaction to death or not.

Tonks didn't think 'human' went very far in applying to either of them.

When she looked in the mirror again, she realized she had been crying. She hastily combed the snarls out of her hair, now a uniform wispy brown, and dried her eyes, pasting on a smile. When she stepped out into the dark hallway, he was gone.

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to be continued...


	4. Chapter 4

Final chapter posted, so sorry about the wait. XD

* * *

_No one is allowed to be so proud they never reach out when they're giving up.  
–'A Lifetime,' Better Than Ezra_

Her room was dark, though the curtains were open. Beams of light from passing cars illuminated it briefly, casting ghostly shadows that chased each other around the walls.

Remus nearly tripped over a pair of boots. He wasn't sure exactly what he was doing, going into her room without asking. She hadn't pointed out which was hers but he had known by merely putting a hand on the door. Her magical signature was immediately recognizable, a shimmering, invisible tension.

If it was a color, it would have been pink.

With an absent wave, he lit the candle on the desk. It cast a circular glow of light; the corners of the room were dark as the edges of an old photograph.

It was as cluttered as the rest of flat with girly items. There were more shoes on the floor and a heap of folded jeans and t-shirts in a squashy chintz chair. On her desk was the vase of pink tulips her mother had brought to the hospital. A large, fuzzy purple dragon occupied the foot of her bed – it stared up at him with black button eyes.

There was a method in the madness, he noted; her things needed for work were near the door, like a fireman's gear, all ready to be thrown on in a heartbeat. Her Auror robes were hanging on a hook; a sheet of crimson wool above the pair of boots he'd half-stumbled over, next to a belt with two spare wands in holsters. One for each hand, she said, and could quick-draw like a movie cowboy, but she couldn't make a cup of tea without spilling.

He had just touched the black badge with her name on it, _N. Tonks_ in silver letters, when motion caught his eye – photographs.

There were dozens. The biggest were a color snapshot of Tonks and her father working on a Jeep and a moving photo of her and Andromeda on horseback, crossing a field. There were Hufflepuffs and Hogwarts graduation, birthdays and Christmases, holidays in places with mountains and snow or sun and sand. There were people he recognized and some he didn't.

The last face he expected to see was his own (though maybe he shouldn't have been so surprised).

Maybe their parallel existence was actually a collision course.

Tonks found him in her room looking at the pictures taped to her mirror. His fingers were on the black-and-white photo of him and Sirius after the mock duel they'd had in 12 Grimmauld's ballroom. They were laughing, their arms around each other's shoulders. She paused in the doorway, then walked up behind him in silence.

She put a hand on his back and he jumped, turning around.

"Oh, it's just you."

"Who else would it be?" she asked.

It was a few seconds before he answered. "Nobody, I guess."

"What…um. What are you doing?"

"Ah. Exploring?"

"Okay, Magellan."

He nodded at her bed. "Nice…er…dragon."

"Thanks."

While they were standing there staring at one another, the power came back on; lights in the hall flickered and the sound of the radio on her desk coming to life made them both jump. A woman with a smooth voice was playing the favorite song of a friend who'd been 'gravely injured in the line of duty.'

Tonks glowered expertly. "That'd be my roommate, taking the piss and broadcasting live."

He listened. "I thought you didn't like sad songs."

"That's not just sad, that's Radiohead."

"Right," Remus said, giving her a 'whatever you say, dear' nod.

She smiled and stepped past him to put her rings in a jewelry box. Her fingers found the orange plastic bottle inside; she opened it, shook out a pair of white pills (Granny Tonks's extras from when she broke her hip, inherited in a box of knit hats) and gulped them down with a swallow of water from the glass on the dresser. She'd already taken two that afternoon; the ones squirreled away in her pocket, and had passed out in the middle of tea with her mother.

He had caught her hand as she was putting the orange bottle away. "What are they?"

"I dunno, but they work. D'you want one?"

He shook his head, his brow furrowed. "Where did you get those?"

"My Gran. Dad's mum."

"I thought she passed away?"

"Yeah," she said tersely. Remus was always so bloody polite. "She did. Last month. You were…slightly busy at the time."

"Nymphadora, I don't think you should be messing around with those—"

"You're very kind to be worried about me," she said, and took his face in her hands and kissed him on the forehead. She had to stand on her toes to do it, brushing her fingers back through his hair, feeling the bite of the stubble on his cheek against her palms. "But I—"

She stopped short. This was the closest they had ever been, she could feel how warm he was from inches away. She could also feel the apprehension radiating from him like the notes of a song, tight and sustained.

"But you?" Remus prompted as she let go, backing away.

Her voice caught in her throat. "But I'm more worried about you."

"There's no need to fret. I'm not going to off myself in a fit of grief because I know you would resurrect me and kick my arse," is what he said instead of the truth; she was all that was left for him, one shiny sliver of hope intangible, like sunlight through a dirty window.

The wireless played on in their silence. Tonks hadn't laughed like he thought she would. Like Sirius would have. She didn't roll her eyes the way Lily would have. She didn't punch him in the shoulder and call him an idiot like James or chuckle nervously like Peter.

What she did didn't shock him because he had been waiting and hoping for it and dreading it the whole night. She stepped into the gap she had left between them and put her arms around his neck, her cheek against his, and whispered, "I know."

And then, "I think I need to lie down."

He helped her to the bed and she sat down gingerly, in stages, like an old woman. When she finally stretched out on her side, he could see the blue-black marks under the hem of her shirt.

When her eyes were closed, he took the bottle of Muggle medicine into the bathroom and dumped the lot down the sink.

Nymphadora was almost asleep when he sat down on the bed next to her. Clutched against her chest was the purple stuffed dragon.

"I miss him," she said dully, her eyes still shut. "So much."

"I know."

"You must hate me. I know I could've saved him."

"I could never hate you." Remus kicked off his shoes and gathered her up as gently as possible. Cradled in his arms, she seemed impossibly fragile, though he'd seen the thrashing she'd taken at the Ministry. He settled back against the mountain of pillows on her bed and she leant her head against his chest.

It wasn't very fair, he thought, that there was no magical map to show him where he was, to tell him which way danger lies and which route was safe to take. They were lost now, for sure, and it was easier not to think about where to go from here. He should have been happy to be able to hold her, to be so close, but he wasn't.

He pushed her hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

"Does it ever stop feeling like this?" she asked in a whisper.

"Yeah," he lied. "It does."

* * *

Thanks you all for reading.


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